Big Drift – Mike Ryan Gets Sideways in Banks Freightliner Cascadia

Turbo/Supercharged Truck Gets Smoky and Sideways in Long Beach

Drifting is cool and is more challenging to do well than it looks, even in the small, rear-drive sports cars that dominate the scene. But imagine doing it in a vehicle with at least quadruple the horsepower of your typical drift car, and about quadruple the weight. Then it gets a LOT harder. But don't tell that to Mike Ryan, who flung his 2000-plus-hp Freightliner Cascadia around the port of Long Beach as though it was a Miata.

Taking inspiration from the series of Ken Block Gymkhana videos, most of the video is composed of the big Freightliner chasing a modified Nissan Silvia drift car, with a blackout Crown Victoria driving on its side for good measure. Throughout, Ryan is a cool character, even taking out his digital camera to take a picture of the tilted Crown Vic. Or at least the video was edited that way.

The climax of the action is Ryan jumping the Freightliner over a collection of Smart ForTwos. The video closes with an unusually attractive female crane operator lowering the claw, which then morphs into a little girl picking up a toy Freightliner truck from an amusement park claw toy game. Check out the heavy-metal tire-smoking drifting action in the video below!